﻿xliv INTRODUCTION. 



Arctic Sea, now lingers in a Lithuanian Forest, protected by an imperial decree of the 

 Czar of Russia. Its remains are found associated with those of the mammoth, in the 

 frozen brick-earths and gravels of Eschscholtz Bay, throughout the Asiatic " tundras," the 

 islands of New Siberia and the Lachow Group, and in the caverns and river-deposits of 

 Northern and Western Europe. It is mentioned in a remarkable List of Graces 1 of the 

 Abbey of St. Gall, written by Ekkehard the younger (who lived from a. n. 980 till 1036), 

 as an article of food, together with the bear, the urus, the beaver (which they called a fish), 

 the wild horse (Equus feralis), the marmot, and others. Mr. Wylie considers that the 

 JEquus feralis was the offspring of a domestic breed run wild like that of America ; but 

 when we consider the vast number of horses that have left their remains in association 

 with those of bison in various Pleistocene deposits, and that at a far later date they formed 

 the food of the tribes that lived in the pile-dwellings of the Swiss Lakes, and the hut- 

 circles of Berkshire, the probability seems to us that reference is here made to a breed of 

 horses as undoubtedly wild as the mouse-coloured wild horse of Central Asia. 



The musk-shrew, Sorex moschatus? of Pallas, described by Professor Owen from the 

 Preglacial deposits of Bac ton, under the name of Palaospalax magnus.is now found only in a 



1 The list of animals is so remarkable that we have subjoined the whole passage in which they are 

 mentioned : 



" Sit benedicta^Jri caro piscis uoce salubri." — line 71 



" Sub cruce diuina benedicta sit ista ferina. 



Sub cruce diuina sapiat bene queeque ferina. 



Et semel et rursus cruce sit medicabilis ursus. 



Hunc medici sanum memorant nullique noeivum. 



Dente timetur (petulcus) aper, cruce tactus sit minus asper. 



Cerui (vel cerue) curracis caro sit benedictio pacis. 



Hsec satan et Larvse fugiant crustamina ceruee. 



Signet uesontem benedictio cornipotentem. 



Dextra dei ueri (uel benedicat) comes assit carnibus uri. 



Sit bos siluanus sub trino nomine (crucis hoc signamine) sanus. 



Sit feralis equi caro dulcis in (sub) hac cruce Christi. 



Imbellem dammam faciat benedictio summam. 



Capreus ad saltum benedictus sit celer altum. 



Sit cibus illsesus caprece. Sit amabilis esus. 



Capreoli (us) uescam dent (det) se comedentibus escam. 



Carnes uerbicum nihil attulerint inimicum. 



Pernix cambissa 3 (fera alpina) bona sit elixa vel assa. 



Sub cruce diuina caro dulcis sit leporina 



Alpinum cassum 4, faciat benedictio crassum. 



Sit caro syluana crucis omnis robore sana." — 'Benedict, ad Mensas' Ekkehardi 

 Monachi Sangallensis (lines 117 — 136), ' Archaeological Journal,' vol. xxi, pp. 355 and 358. 



2 Pallas, ' Zoographia,' vol. i ; p. 128 ; ' Second Travels,' trans., vol. i, p. 48, London, 1802. Fischer 

 (•Synopsis Mammalium,' 8vo, Stat., 1829, p. 250-1) gives the literature of the species. 



3 Chamois. 4 Marmot ? 



